Copying the chapter naming style from CMGQ, then?
Halfway across town, a demon's skull dissolves into fine vapor as a shaft of ethereal light passes through it at two hundred miles per hour.
That's pretty slow for light. Also, "halfway across town", even figuratively, is quite a distance. 200mph is 18 seconds per mile, and to get it through his skull at that distance, with that much delay… either we have extremely good eyesight, timing, aim, and estimation of our target's velocity (assuming it's non-zero), or the shot has some degree of homing/can be guided in flight. Or we just got lucky. (Yes, I am assuming that the shot did not slow down on its way there; I think this is probably reasonable. Actually, that's a good question: do our shots dissipate with distance, and are they affected by air drag or gravity? Or could we theoretically shoot down a satellite?)
His partner ducks back behind the building where they'd been hiding before you can fire again
As I just pointed out, if they're at a significant distance (>500 yards, say) and if the shot really travels at 200mph=293.3 ft/sec, she has plenty of time to fire twice before the first shot arrives.
Demon's Bladed Ax: 200 Base Damage, +2 Dice, +10 Surprise, x3 CRUSH= 636 Total Damage
Going with multipliers working as you wrote them, I see. Is this a mechanics difference, or do GEAR RUSH, ALIGNED GEAR, and PROPHET DRIVE need to be modified (or quietly ignored)? (Well, ALIGNED GEAR needs to be modified anyway, since Goddess White's Overwhelming Presence was changed after that, but specifically the Crush bit. And speaking of retcons, Carnage's predicament in GEAR RUSH/CARNAGE GEAR no longer makes sense with her rewritten character sheet. Whatever.)
By all conventional logic, the blow from the ten foot demon who looked like his diet consisted entirely of steroids and protein shakes should have cleaved you in two from shoulder to hip. Instead, the massive, ugly weapon just stops upon meeting your upraised forearm, accompanied by a slight crunching sound as the metal of the blade was placed in contest with your magically enhanced durability and found to be the more pliable of the two.
More to the point, conventional physics says there's significant momentum behind that swing, so she should be knocked back/down regardless of magical durability. Unless she's well-braced and the swing hits at the right angle. Likewise, the ax being dented says more about her muscle strength than her durability, since she has to provide sufficient opposing force in addition to not breaking.
-100 *Incoherent Screaming*
That's a new one for the Situational Modifier list. Guessing it's -100, not -200%? The latter wouldn't make much sense.
Demon Footsoldier: 50 Base Resilience, +7 Dice, -10 Stunned = 47 Damage Reduction
More evidence for Stunned being -20%.
You'd like to go looking for them yourself, but someone needs to stick around and guard the town
Just how often does this town get attacked? And what's happened that makes it possible or reasonable for the demons to do so?
" 'Parently someone up th' chain heard about those demon buggers we been gettin' an' decided it was suspicious."
Glad to see someone's paying attention.
"I'd still prefer to stay as far off the radar as I can manage"
Interesting. I wonder why?
Mary sounded pretty adult in that conversation—and elsewhere, for that matter. How old is she?
You smile and sketch a small wave. "Hey Blanc, what's up?"
The shorter girl blinks at you once, slowly, then immediately tries to close the door.
"Wha— Hey!" You exclaim, bracing a hand against the door before she can close it completely. "What kind of welcome for an old friend is that?!"
"The amount of good things that could result from your presence here is measured in negative numbers", she says, shoving at harder at the door. "Now go away."
Again, interesting. There's clearly a significant amount of history here—from before or after they became magical girls, I wonder? And is Blanc pushing Mary away because she tends to bring trouble, or because she tends to
be trouble?
Suddenly there's the sound of a window slamming open from above you and a voice calls out, "Hey, is that Mary?"
So, the one who seems least interested in troublesome magical girl business is the one with sisters. This sounds… familiar.
"Are-shawn-tee…" you sound out slowly, trying to mimic her pronunciation. Your attempt apparently wasn't that good, judging by her giggles.
"Close, but no cigar," she says with a shake of her head. "You can call me Silvie if you want, lots of people do so I don't mind."
So, Argentée knows Mary well enough to recognize her by hearing or sight, but Mary's never learned to pronounce her name? Odd.
You frown up at her. "How did you know I was a magical girl?"
"I didn't until just now. Thanks for confirming my theory~"
…Well shit, she had you there. You'll need to watch out for that kind of thing in the future.
Yes, Mary. If you want to keep a secret, you need to actually try.
In that moment, the day is as night in comparison to your brilliance.
A quick trip to Wikipedia tells us that day is about 400,000 times as bright as night. The Sun takes up about 1/105,000 of the sky, and provides most of the day's light. Thus, we can conclude that Mary during her transformation is a bit more than twice as bright as the Sun, and should not be viewed without eye protection.
Very strong eye protection; you'd have to be about 300 feet away before she took up as little of your field of vision as the Sun does (brightness is a measure of light per unit area, i.e. something equally bright but twice the size gives off twice as much light, and brightness is independent of distance).
your hair and eyes glow a bit
Useful for seeing in the dark, but glowy things are obvious targets. You'd be better off with a flashlight.
What kind of magical girl doesn't have frills?
Looking at the front page of CMGQ… about half of them.
The dress up sequence must be a lot more impressive than the end result, though, if Argentée's slack-jawed expression is anything to go by.
Nah, she's just dealing with flash blindness, miss giga-candelas per square meter.
"So you want to try again… at night." Blanc snorts. "And here I was, thinking masochism was Plutia's thing."
Come on, Blanc, where's your sense of adventure? Or, failing that, your GPS?
"So," Blanc starts, having apparently finished her plate off while you weren't looking, "How are we heading back down to the states? I didn't see a sidecar on that bike of yours."
You grin and waggle your eyebrows mischievously. "I hope you like hugs~"
Does she have a car, too, or is she hoping that Penny and Plutia have transportation? Or was she planning on putting four people on one motorcycle?
+100xp Not your first rodeo.
Not that that's anywhere near the XP that she'd have gotten in a career as long as she seems to have had already (she's had time to establish relationships, get Argentée curious, establish an SOP with Hero and Conquest, etc.).
